


WITH MOUTHS GAPING LIKE THROATS

by boneshrine



Category: EXO (Band), Sunless Sea
Genre: Cannibalism, Cults, Fallen London Crossover, Horror, M/M, Minor Character Death, Minor character suicide, Non-Graphic Rape/Non-Con, Religious Imagery & Symbolism, Sailing, Sex, Sunless Sea crossover, Victorian, you don't need to have played sunless sea just bring your love for jongdae in a cossack
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-03
Updated: 2019-10-31
Packaged: 2020-11-22 19:47:49
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 9
Words: 18,317
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20879705
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/boneshrine/pseuds/boneshrine
Summary: Captain Minseok is intrigued by the Chapel of Lights and the smiling priest who lives there.





	1. ST ARTHUR'S LESSON

**Author's Note:**

> this is a very bastardized sunless sea crossover in which i pick and choose what elements i want and completely discard what would require too much context. if you actually play sunless sea and you're thinking "moe that's not how it goes," you're right! you just need to know a few things to follow along.  
1\. victorian-era london has been literally pulled underground, and so has everyone in it. it's run by this god-like capitalist entity known as the "bazaar," whose will is enforced by the mysterious "masters" of different trades  
2\. this whole sea is also underground, like this is one giant cave and no one knows how far it goes. there are false-stars on the ceiling.

The thing about sailing in the Neath is that the dark waters and the dark air melt together to forge a dark vastness. There is no such thing as a horizon-line. Islands are not visible until a ship is nearly upon their shores, so having a meticulous and updated map is crucial.

The perma-darkness is why when the twinkling light appears in the distance, Minseok's crew is suitably alarmed. They don't know if it's an enemy ship's lights, a false-star that fell from the sky, a shared hallucination, or something else entirely. "Captain!" Yixing calls out, drawing Minseok out from his quarters, where he and Kyungsoo had been mapping the current positions of islands of the Undersea. Some of them had moved recently, rendering Kyungsoo's last map obsolete. But some islands' locations never change: Grand Geode, Kingeater's Castle. Irem. London itself, of course. No one knows why the islands move so often, or why they move at all. Some say it's the design of the Bazaar, the sentient core of Fallen London. Others say the Masters, the Bazaar's officers, push and pull the islands around. Minseok has long since stopped questioning it.

The Chapel of Lights is an island that _does_ change, however. It is always in the northernmost part of the Undersea, where the waters become too cold to stay liquid, and icebergs draw nearer and nearer to ships, like ravening wolves honing in on the terrified sheep of Minseok's ship. It's only metaphor, but like prey, Minseok's crew has been fidgety and jumpy at every sound, every figure that cuts through the darkness. At one point, Jongin even sits down against the side of the ship and pulls his legs to his chest, notching his face between his knees.

(The poor boy was never meant for sailing. But Minseok is soft, and when Jongin was caught trying to steal a small crate from Minseok's ship, Minseok offered him a place on his crew instead of giving him to the Constables. The Constables were never as forgiving to Urchins like Jongin. Minseok would know. He had been one, once, even if it seems like it was lifetimes ago, had been one of the street orphans that stole food to eat and information to sell, who hid up on the rooftops of London where adults were too clumsy to reach. Minseok had been lucky to escape that life. Maybe that's why he wanted to take on Jongin.)

At the crews' alarm at the distant light, Kyungsoo's voice rises from behind Minseok, then moving to the side as he rushes down to the main deck. "Calm down! It's either Mt. Palmerston or the Chapel." He would know, since he had probably been paying attention to the distance they've covered since they ported in Whither.

Part of Minseok hopes for it to be the light of Mt. Palmerston, the daring little port at the bottom of a volcano. Brimstone, at least, is more familiar than the Chapel.

_"A Weeping Scar?" Kris had asked. He stood up from his desk, rising to his full height and looking every bit like the Admiral he was. He stepped over to the window, gazing out as though there was a whole scene to look at beyond the glass, as though there was any change in the streets illuminated by yellow lights. "What do you need one of those for?"_

_Minseok stayed in his seat, eyes searching Kris's frown. Admiralty had changed his old friend. He couldn't tell if it was for good or bad, the sternness of the Admiral Kris was now or the roughness of the Urchin he had been. "I was commissioned by the First Curator in Venderbight. He's blind, and he heard that Weeping Scars are 'blacker than black.' His logic is that if he can only see darkness, maybe he'll be able to see this 'blacker than black' color." It didn't make sense to Minseok, but he also knows that the Curator's assistant would be able to tell if Minseok followed through, even if the Curator himself can't see the wound. "He calls it 'Gant.'" He's heard about Gant before—a color of legends, the color that's left when all others are devoured. It's always just been parts of stories that the old sailors used to tell Urchins to dissuade them from becoming seamen themselves. Even if Minseok himself doubts the color's existence, he knows that the Curator will pay handsomely for a Weeping Scar either way._

_"You'll need a place to put the scar. A body for it. You can't just cut it off of someone's skin."_

_"I'll cross that bridge when I get there."_

_Kris sighed. "That's what I'm worried about. If you were satisfied with just crossing bridges, you wouldn't be sailing." Kris paced the length of his office once before sitting back down in his chair, choosing instead to fidget with an old quill as an outlet for his agitation. Minseok knew Kris didn't want to give him the information that would send him on yet another dangerous journey over the Undersea. Years of friendship meant that Minseok knew how to handle Kris, though, and he remained silent until Kris finally broke._

_"I've heard of only one man with a Weeping Scar," Kris finally said. "He said he got it from the Chapel of Lights, but refused to explain how."_

_Minseok's heart stuttered in his chest. As a sailor, he had been to many places before, but to the Chapel of Lights only once, when he was just a crewman on someone else's ship. His captain had left the ship to restock supplies, come back with a pale face, and ordered the ship to raise anchor without granting anyone shore leave._

_"If you go," Kris said, "we'll pay nicely for any port reports you bring back to us. But Minseok . . ." Kris's face was grave. Minseok's fingers curled into the arms of his chair._

_". . . I would not linger there."_

Presently, Minseok's fingers curl again, but this time into the lacquer of his ship's railing as he gazes at the pinprick of light resting on the invisible line of the horizon. He knows it isn't Mt. Palmerston.

The light grows larger and larger as their ship crawls on, until they're close enough to see that the light source isn't one light, but rather hundreds, thousands of small ones. The crew's simmering panic ebbs back into unease, shoaled underneath by wonder. There are candles stationed on the rocks, lining the docks, on top of the buildings. It's a fire hazard if Minseok has ever seen one, but the aesthetic is something worth admiring.

Luhan, Minseok's First Officer, comes up behind him with hands on his waist and a chin on his shoulder. "It's rather pretty, isn't it?" he asks.

Minseok huffs out a wry chuckle. "That's what I'm afraid of. Pretty things in the Undersea are usually the most dangerous."

"And yet here you are, bedding _me_ on a semi-regular basis," Luhan snickers, patting Minseok cordially on his flank.

Minseok elbows him away with a quiet laugh. "Only when there are no other options. You're not that pretty, Luhan, or dangerous. Don't flatter yourself." Both of those statements are lies. Luhan is very pretty, with his doe eyes and delicate mouth. He's also very dangerous; Minseok once saw him slaughter a devil with nothing but his fists and a gaff-hook. Luhan has more than proven himself as a competent, trustworthy First Officer.

And God knows people who can be trusted in the Undersea are few and far between.

"See if I ever suck your dick again," Luhan grumbles, kicking at Minseok's shin and sticking out his tongue when his target swiftly steps out of the way.

"That's not nearly as big of a threat as you think it is." The comment earns himself another petulant face before Luhan climbs down from the bridge to join the others on the main deck.

The Chapel of Lights is aptly named. The lights form more distinct outlines of geography and architecture as they get closer, and eventually they draw close enough that they can make out the chapel itself: a large cathedral built at the back of the town, rising over the port from its summit like a king over bowed peasants. It is decorated with the most candles of them all, adorning each line and curve of its framework.

It would be beautiful, if not for the cracking of its bell like iron laughter, eerie and sepulchral, and loud enough to shake Minseok's bones. The crew's movements tense and curt as they prepare to dock. Gone are the playful insults and meaningless jibes. The crew is quiet. Their heads are down.

_I would not linger there,_ Kris had said. Minseok doesn't plan to.

They pay to dock, and Minseok allows his crew shore leave, but only to the tavern and the shops on the main street. "We don't know this place," Minseok quietly tells them as they gather on the dock. "I've heard things about the Chapel. Until we're more familiar with the port, it's better to be safe than sorry."

Minseok has learned by now to not have an emotional attachment to his crew. His officers, yes, but crewmen are commodities, just like food and fuel and ammunition are commodities. But Minseok would rather not lose any to the Chapel and its mysteries when they're so far away from London, where sailors are easier to come by and enlist.

Normally, his crew would jeer at him for being so cautious, but they understand the gravity of his warning. Some of them opt to avoid shore leave altogether. The ones that dare leave the ship gather in a herd to visit the tavern.

Jongin turns from where Sehun is tugging him by the wrist to the tavern. "Where will you be?" His eyes are big and worried. Not fit for a sailor, Minseok thinks again. Not fit at all.

"Just at the Chapel," Minseok answers, giving him a reassuring smile. "I need to have a word with the clergy about our commission." As its name implies, the Chapel of Lights is managed not by a government, but by the church and its tenets. It would be the best place for Minseok to start asking how to go about earning himself a Weeping Scar, although neither Jongin, nor any of his crew, know about that part. All he had told them was that the First Curator will pay a hefty price for something the color of Gant, and that Minseok believes he can find it here.

"Stay safe, Captain," Jongin says before Sehun finally pulls him away.

No, not fit for sailing at all.

Minseok walks through the town, following streets that steadily slant up towards the chapel itself. The faithful, dressed in dark clothes and often cloaked, move silently in the shadows between the candlelight, their eyes glinting at Minseok before going dark again. For all of the candles, Minseok does not pass a single chandlery, or at least no shops that advertise themselves as such.

At the summit of the hill, the chapel rises above Minseok, dressed in candles like hundreds of glittering diamonds. Acolytes in rose-red albs tend the candles, shaving off old wax, and they walk freely through the church's open door. One such acolyte stands in the center of the doorway, hands folded together and hidden in the sleeves of her robe. Unlike the others, her hood is down, and her eyes are locked on Minseok. As he approaches, she smiles and says, "Priest Jongdae has been waiting for you. Please follow me."

It's the first open-mouthed smile he has seen since he left his ship, and while it's warm, it stirs unease in his gut. He returns the smile and follows her through the church, discreetly looking about as he does.

There is an altar. There are rows of pews. A pulpit. But there are no bibles or hymn-books. The stained glass window on the wall of the chancel is the red of cochineal, and worshipers flit in and out of its red shadows. As an Urchin, Minseok had stowed away in many churches, abandoned or not, for shelter from the weather or from the Constables. But he had never seen a church such as this one.

The acolyte leads him to the far side of the nave and turns right before the transept, leading him down an aisle and to a nondescript door. She knocks once, waits for an affirmative answer, and opens it, stepping aside for Minseok to enter the room first.

It's a sacristy, Minseok realizes upon seeing the stacks of offering bowls and orderly line of hung robes, their cloth dyed red instead of white. The sacristy is simple and almost utilitarian in appearance, not at all like the resplendent offices in the London cathedrals. There is a desk at the far end of the room, and sitting at it is a man much younger than any priest Minseok has ever met. His hair is dark and long for a man in the clergy, long enough to be messy and unkempt, clashing with the neat lines of his black cassock.

Both he and the acolyte have feline features, the priest with a mouth that curls on either side and angular cheeks, and the acolyte with her lidded but sharp eyes.

"Thank you, Jennie," the priest says, smiling warmly at her. "You may shut the door behind you."

"Of course. Let me know if you need anything, Jongdae."

The door closes with a finite sound. The man's eyes flick over to Minseok, giving him a thorough once-over just as Minseok does the same. He's very pretty. Had he not been a man of the church, Minseok might have tried to share his bed for a night.

"You address each other without titles," Minseok finally says when it's clear the priest will not speak first.

The priest stands up. His cassock clings to the line of his body, emphasizing the breadth of his shoulders, the tapering of his torso towards his slim waist. "I find that people are more comfortable when you drop formalities, don't you, Captain?" Jongdae says. He strokes the top of his desk with a finger. His ivory skin looks nice against its lacquer.

Minseok answers the true question the priest is asking. "My name is Minseok."

Jongdae smiles. "It's a pleasure to meet you. We don't get ships out here often, especially not one the size of your own. Tell me, is it a very large corvette or a very small frigate? I can't tell."

"By Neath standards, she's a frigate." Neath naval measurements are different from topside ones, but Minseok doesn't know much about it. Neath ships are meant to be operated by far fewer sailors. The Undersea is much more dangerous than the waters topside, and therefore ships need to compensate for the higher mortality rate.

Commodities.

"It's quite beautiful," Jongdae says. "And I assume the only reason you bring it here is because we have something you need." He sits on his desk, leaning back slightly to show off the sleek cut of his body, and his smile is white and sly. Minseok can't tell whether Jongdae means to flirt with him or intimidate him. Neither seem very appropriate for a priest. "But we at the Chapel of Lights are nothing if not hospitable. I insist that you and your crew join us for our worship tonight, and then for our dinner after the service. When we have had our fill of good food and better companionship, you and I can meet again to discuss what it is you would like."

"You're very accommodating," Minseok notes.

Jongdae's smile turns into a grin. His teeth are sharp. Goosebumps trickle like icy water down Minseok's spine even as heat curls in his belly.

+++

That night, Minseok returns with his crew, leading them up the candlelit path up the hill to the chapel. They stay close to each other, giving a wide berth to all of the worshipers and acolytes they pass. It would have been amusing if Minseok had not felt just as unsettled.

In the chapel, the pews are filled with the faithful, all except the last two rows of pews, which are completely empty. The cat-faced acolyte from before, Jennie, smiles at them and gestures to the empty benches. Minseok takes the innermost spot, putting him right against the center aisle. Sehun pushes in next to him, and Jongin on the other side of Sehun. Luhan is behind him, grumbling about "damned religion" and "creepy red windows makes it look like a stomach in here."

The last comment sticks with Minseok. Indeed, the candlelight bounces off of the wine-red of the stained glass chancel window and dyes the chapel the same color. Combined with the lack of paintings, sculptures, and notable architecture, the inside of the chapel seems cavernous, gaping. Hungry. The murmurs of the church-goers echo dully until the church's bell tolls, demanding immediate silence.

When the last toll fades, a figure steps up onto the apse at the front of the nave. Jongdae smiles, curled and inscrutable. "Welcome," he says, and begins his sermon.

Minseok noticed the lack of holy scripts earlier that day, but as the sermon goes on, it becomes obvious that there are none that this congregation use. There is no lectern at the front of the nave where Jongdae can prop up a book from which to recite verses. Hidden behind no such stand, he remains at the center of the dais, occasionally walking the length of it to one side, then the other, his steps measured but unhurried. He uses his hands as he speaks with his voice, as clear and commanding as the tolling bell. Unlike the solemn priests of London, Jongdae is all secretive smiles, and his quips sometimes toe the line of flirtatiousness.

"The Drowned Man hums tonight," Jongdae says. Minseok still isn't sure who this Drowned Man is, but the only logical conclusion is that he's the main god they worship, or at least some sort of prophet. "His song, like fish roe, clouds the water. We will feel him in the harps of us, and if his tune is caught, it will be raised to the sky where the bright birds pass—" 

Here, the congregation cry out like birds, and the cries rattle away into the rafters.

"—and the air hangs sultry and the gods no longer frown."

"What the hell is wrong with these freaks," Sehun grumbles beside him, and Minseok digs the heel of his boot into Sehun's toes. Sehun makes a noise in the back of his throat and then quiets.

But Minseok can't help but think that Sehun is right: there's something not right here. His crew look disturbed. Minseok understands, but he also can't help but be intrigued by the fervor of the congregation and the enigma that is their priest.

Their service ends with a great meal. Acolytes creep out of the shadowed corners of the transept to set up tables between the nave and the apse, their movements quick, efficient, and quiet. In the wake of their flowing albs are platters of food, and even from their pews at the back of the nave, it looks delicious.

A shadow moves beside Minseok. "We invite our guests to partake first," Jennie says, gesturing to the meal. Minseok shares a look with Luhan, who shrugs and nods. Minseok stands and leads his crew to the front, thankful that the people filling the pews don't overtly stare. Instead, they keep their heads down, murmuring to each other once more.

After eating nothing but dried and canned food for so long, the meal is especially satisfying. They have shark steaks plucked from the sea. Thin slices of cavern tuna, translucent and delicate as paper. Little crimson cakes flavored with cinnamon and coated with poppy seeds. Deviled pork kidneys on crisp, seasoned bread.

By the time Minseok gets to this last delicacy, his plate is full of red, juicy food, barely any space left on the porcelain, and no matter how much he wants to try everything, there's still a whole congregation to feed. As though hearing his thoughts, a voice purrs: "Eat. Take your fill. There's more than enough to go around."

Jongdae leans close enough that his lips brush against the outer ridge of Minseok's ear, and when Minseok leans away, he, predictably, smiles, sharp-toothed and curled-lipped. "I'm already taking more than my fill," Minseok says. The rest of his crew had filled their plates before getting to the end of the serving table, and now they follow Jennie back to their pews.

"It will make my church and my acolytes look bad if you don't partake in everything we have to offer. Please, I insist. Let us be gracious hosts."

Jongdae's smile pulls even wider when Minseok adds the last serving to his plate.

"When you are finished with your meal, send your crew back to your ship and meet me in the sacristy. I'd love to hear what brings you to the Chapel of Lights, and what it is I can do for you."

He makes it sound like a come-on again, and Minseok is tempted, so tempted, but this is a man of the church, even if this church is unlike any at which Minseok has ever worshiped, with tenets Minseok still can't figure out. Their rituals and sermons appear to be gluttonous; maybe they observe other carnal ceremonies of a more sexual nature.

And, no, Minseok can't think like that. A church is a church, he tells himself firmly, no matter what its practices are. No religion would have rituals so shameful. This is a legitimate religious order with a place of worship, with sermons, with a formal congregation, and acolytes, and smiling, tempting priests.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **+1 St Arthur's Candle**


	2. ST BEAU'S LESSON

The door to the sacristy shuts with a click as definitive and foreboding as a funeral toll. Jongdae strolls to the desk to perch on it in the same way he had done earlier, drawing attention to the crisp lines of his body. After Minseok's eyes finish dragging across it, the priest's smile turns into a smirk. Its presence is unsettling; all of his many smiles have been pleasant and dangerous, but not devious, like he's getting away with something he shouldn't, like this one.

"Did you like our meal?"

The food was delicious and juicy and very red. "Yes," Minseok says earnestly. "It was delicious."

"Good. Do you have any opinions about wine, Minseok?"

"I like it well enough." In the Neath, the only wine that can be made is from mushroom spores. Fruits can't be grown without sunlight, while fungus can be harvested and fermented. The liquid is semi-sweet, but the strong scent of mushroom has always been somewhat off-putting to Minseok.

Jongdae procures two wine glasses from one of the cabinets and sets them on his desk. He gestures for Minseok to sit at the chair in front of the desk across from his own before he searches through a second cabinet. "I don't mean the 1879 or the 1882 series that you can pick up from any general store in London," Jongdae says. He places a sizable bottle on the desk next to the glasses. The glass is a dark purple, and the label . . . .

Minseok can't keep the surprise off of his face or out of his voice. "Is this a 1868 First Sporing?" These bottles are hard to come by. There's word that only close friends of Mr Wines, the Bazaar Master presiding over the trade of liquor, have ever sampled it.

Jongdae taps his index finger along the side of his nose. "We all have our secrets," he says. Minseok agrees, but he gets the impression that Jongdae has more secrets than most.

Jongdae pours them each a half-full glass. After he slides one across to Minseok, he picks up his own and, like earlier today, sits on the edge of his desk instead of at his chair. It puts his trim hips near Minseok's eye-level. "Thank you for coming to the service," Jongdae says. "Even if you don't share our beliefs, I'm glad you joined us."

The priest says it like Minseok had a choice in attending or not. If he needed information on how to get a Weeping Scar, he had to listen to Jongdae's terms.

"But," Jongdae continues, "you can't have come here just to hear our message. So, Minseok." He says Minseok's name like a sin. "Now that our bellies and our glasses are full, tell me: What brings you here to the Chapel of Lights?"

Minseok takes his time answering. Weeping Scars take the taboo of unknown evils and combine it with the foulness of flesh wounds, making it unfavorable dinner conversation. He sips his drink, and the fungal robustness characteristic of spore-wine fills his mouth, but, to his surprise, is immediately tempered by a balsamic sec he's never tasted in a wine before. His surprise must show on his face because Jongdae chuckles. "It lives up to its reputation, doesn't it?"

Minseok hums an affirmative, hoping he doesn't seem too eager as he goes for another sip. Jongdae is patient, waiting, and Minseok sets his glass down. "I need a Weeping Scar," he says finally. "I heard from a reliable source that I can get one here."

And that, that makes Jongdae's smile slip, his brows shooting up and his mouth parting in unreserved surprise. "You _want_ a Weeping Scar? Whatever for?"

"A commission," Minseok answers. A part of him is strangely pleased to have finally found something to make the priest stop smiling, to have surprised him out of it. "One of my clients requires something with the color Gant, and, if rumor is correct, I can get one here at the Chapel of Lights."

"You can," Jongdae says. His brows slide back into place, but his smile does not, curiosity still plain on his face. "But it's not a painless process, and once you have one, there's no getting rid of a Weeping Scar. You'll have it for the rest of your life. Are you sure a commission is worth such a price?"

Minseok certainly hopes it is. "Will it incapacitate me for long?"

Jongdae taps the fingers of one hand on the desk. Compared to the sleekness of the rest of his body, Minseok notices that his hands are blunt, gnarled. "No," he answers after a pause. "But the trauma is . . . not insignificant." But he doesn't look concerned; rather, his head is tilted, his look scrutinizing, like Minseok is some puzzle to be taken apart and solved.

"Then it's fine. It probably won't be the worst thing I face in the Undersea." He knows from experience that the Curator pays well. He'll make it worth Minseok's trouble.

"Probably," Jongdae repeats, his lips dancing at the sharp edge of a smile again, and Minseok can't tell if he's being agreed with or teased. Jongdae brings his glass back up to his mouth, and Minseok is entranced by the way his throat works around a swallow. When he returns his glass to the table, his lips are stained red, and Minseok _wants._

"What a strange man you are, Captain," Jongdae says. "But if it is a Weeping Scar you desire, then it is a Weeping Scar I will give to you. Come to the sermon tomorrow morning. After, I'll show you how to get your wound. Tell your crew not to expect you until the day after tomorrow at the earliest. You'll need time to heal, and while you do, the Chapel will take care of you." His voice has a hardness to it that indicates dismissal, and Minseok quietly thanks him and takes his leave.

+++

Jongin insists on accompanying him to the sermon. When Minseok tells him that it's not necessary, his brows fold up in concern. "Something isn't right here, Captain," he says, wringing his hands. "I don't think you should go alone."

"I'll be fine, but it's your choice whether or not to come."

After a light breakfast of spore soup and a reminder to Luhan about Minseok's impending abeyance, they follow the candlelit path to the Chapel, accompanied by other devotees on their way to worship. A handful of the acolytes they pass by offer short greetings, either offering wishes for a good day or, more often, silent, knowing smiles. Jongin keeps close to Minseok.

Jennie meets them once more at the entrance to the Chapel. Her cat eyes flash at him as she tilts her chin towards her chest in acknowledgement. She doesn't direct them towards any specific pew this morning, so Minseok finds one near the middle, taking his seat farthest from the aisle, and Jongin slides close enough that Minseok can feel the heat from his thigh. He starts bouncing his knee. After a few minutes, Minseok plants his hand firmly on Jongin's leg to steady him. Jongin slumps back in the pew, chastised and subdued.

With a confident, strong gait, Jongdae sweeps to the front of the room, the clicking of his boots echoing through the hall, and the congregation turns to him like above-ground flowers turning toward the sun.

"Welcome, my friends, my flock of fish," Jongdae begins.

The sermon depicts souls as fish in an unclouded ocean. A light will be the bait. "Here are the candles to bring them all in," Jongdae says, and Minseok swears the candle flames around him shudder in anticipation of the hunt. "And the well which will eat all our sins. I will set the hook in your lip," he promises, and the mouths of all the congregation open. Minseok's jaw drops as well, and he can feel the secret lodged in the soft flesh of his throat. Lodge, and quiver.

"Captain," a voice next to him says, and groggily, like he's waking up but his mind is still dreaming, he realizes that Jongin is still next to him. For a moment, he had forgotten about all but Jongdae. Jongin nudges him, then subtly points back behind them towards the entrance. "Captain, look. What is that?"

With great effort, Minseok tears his gaze from Jongdae. At the very back of the church is a hooded figure, but its outline is fuzzy, oscillating like a hallucination, restless as it flickers in an out of sight. The place where its eyes should be is completely shadowed, but its chasmal mouth is in full view, illuminated by the plethora of candles. In the light of the fire, its teeth gleam.

When Minseok turns back, Jongdae's eyes are honed in on him, and they are black, the kind of black found at the bottom of a well, so black that they swallow the candlelight.

Minseok doesn't know how he gets from the pew to the sacristy. He's alone with Jongdae now, though, so he must have sent Jongin back to the ship. Minseok blinks away the fog blanketing his mind, and with it, the residual hazy image of the creature in the back of the church. It's replaced with the sight of Jongdae staring out of the window. There's only a single candle on the windowsill, and from where it sits in front of the glass, its flame bobs and bows, making shadows dance across the geometry of the priest's face.

"That was the lesson of St Beau," Jongdae says, and Minseok knows he's not the one being addressed because instead of a smile, Jongdae has on a dreamy, distant expression. The daze that had settled over Minseok must have not been a unique experience, then. "It's my favorite one, you see. I've always been drawn to the light. The imagery is . . . inspiring." His countenance clears, the spell broken. "It seems fitting for our plans today, wouldn't you say?" He says it the way that someone might talk about plans for an afternoon picnic, or for a day at the market.

"What exactly are 'our' plans?" Minseok asks.

"Ah." His hand glides across the desk. "You have heard me speak of a well." It's not a question, but Minseok nods anyway to prompt Jongdae to continue. "It isn't some sort of metaphor. There is an old well on this island, and it serves as a shrine for us, a symbol of the Drowned Man and the glorious agony of his sacrifice. We will lower you into the well, and the well will take your nightmares. In return, it will give you the scar."

Minseok has questions, but before he can voice any of them, the door to the sacristy creaks open, and Jennie glides in like a wraith seeping through cracks in floorboards, silent and lithe. Jongdae pays her no mind. Instead, he asks, "Captain, are you sure you want to do this? While not fatal, offering your body for the well to taste is not a pleasant affair."

It's the second time Jongdae has warned him about receiving a Weeping Scar, and it gives him more pause than it had last night. He has little doubt that the Curator's reward will be worth it. The man has a reputation of granting generous boons to those who fulfill his desires. His hesitation now is a result of his amount of preparation (or relative lack of) compared to Jongdae's repeated warnings.

But he already made up his mind. "I'm sure."

"I see. If you're ready, then." Jongdae picks up a candle set on a holder, one of the many that line the room. "Jennie?"

"Yes." Jennie reaches under a cabinet and produces a length of thick rope. Before Minseok can ask what the purpose of it is, Jongdae glides out of the room, Jennie following a step behind him like his own shadow. Minseok hastily catches up to them after taking a moment to shut the sacristy door behind him.

Jongdae leads them out of the church through a door tucked away in a cubbyhole at the side of the narthex. Outside, the wind, pushed by some invisible force, cuts through the warmth of Minseok's clothes, making his face feel cold and raw. It carries the smell of sea salt, but also something juicy and succulent—a feast in the making, perhaps from whatever kitchen that had provided their meal last night. Minseok feels saliva pooling in his mouth and swallows it down.

They walk a path maybe two hundred fifty fathoms. The island, according to Kyungsoo's maps, is less than twenty kilometers in length, and most of it undeveloped, home to only white, green, and gray fungi that can withstand not only the lack of light, but the boreal weather pulled down from the north. The fungi cling to the bare rock like barnacles on the underside of a ship.

The darkness prevents Minseok from seeing outside of the light cast by Jongdae's candle, so he doesn't see the well until they're almost upon it. It's plain, as far as wells go: a ring of laid stone without even a shelf. There is no roof, no contraption with which to fetch the water, if there even _is_ fresh groundwater in an island so rocky and small.

"I have to go down there?" Minseok asks dubiously.

It's then that he becomes aware of a whispering darker than the sound of wind scraping the rock. It's a deep, prognostic sound, sending shivers down Minseok's spine. Jongdae's and Jennie's mouths are closed-lipped smiles. It's just them, Minseok, and the well.

"It's not too late to back out," Jongdae says, and there's a moment where Minseok wants to take him up on the escape, to say, _Forget about this. Something isn't right here._ Jongdae's eyes watch him closely, expecting an answer, and Minseok takes a deep breath and steps forward, not looking away.

Something rumbles from the well.

Jongdae takes the rope from Jennie and begins to wrap it around Minseok. "The well is deep and hungry," he says as he works. "It's easy to lose yourself in it if you're not prepared. We want to give it a taste, not the whole meal. I'll tie you so that you won't sink out of our reach." He crosses and weaves the rope around trunk and limb, knotting it in places that Minseok thinks are planned because they're symmetrical on both sides of his body. The resulting harness isn't tight enough that he can't feel body parts going numb, but he knows he isn't going to be escaping any time soon, especially unarmed as he is.

Privately, Minseok is impressed. Being on a ship for so long, Minseok has learned many types of functional knots. These knots look pretty, not just practical. He wants to know how exactly Jongdae became this experienced at tying knots; it seems like a useless skill for a priest to know. Instead he asks, "How long will this take?"

"It depends how willingly you give up your nightmares," Jongdae says. "But you won't be aware of time once you're under."

They speak of the well as though it is a living thing, and now, standing right by the stone wall, Minseok thinks he understands why. The well is _hungry._ He can feel its pangs, its desire to consume, as clearly as though it were his own. The quiet, otherworldly growl reverberating from the aquifer is that of starvation, of the need to be filled. He wants to ask what it _is,_ what ancient, foul magic made it sentient and unholy, but he is afraid of the answer.

The well demands him, and he cannot say no.

Jennie and Jongdae hold on to the tail of the rope as Minseok slides himself over the stone wall, letting his weight fall into the makeshift harness. His stomach roils as they lower him down, down, down, the cutting him off from the candlelight. Minseok is used to darkness. He has to be, to sail a sea in a giant cavern. But this darkness is different: older, angrier, hungrier. Almost palpable. "This is for the Drowned Man," comes Jongdae's voice, bouncing across the well-walls. "He was eaten. You will only be wounded."

Down farther still. Down until there is no light at all, and he can't hear the comforting sound of waves in the distance, only the roar of the well.

The water is colder than any water Minseok has ever been in before, flaying like knives, flaying like teeth. His skin will freeze and crack right off of his flesh. The well rages in his ears. He can't hear his own screams over its victorious braying. It feasts. It _feasts._

There is cold: ice, the farthest place from the sun, where no heat will ever grace his skin again. He can't even remember what warmth feels like. He never knew that "cold" was a synonym for "lonely." He knows now.

There is darkness: submerged in a black so thick that no star, no flame, can penetrate it. It wraps around him like a cocoon, like the strangling hands of a lover.

Then there is nothing. He ceases to exist in every sense of the word. What is time, what is matter, what is cognition, to someone who has been chewed up by the mouth of God?

. . . .

Chewed up and spit out.

"Shhh."

Warm hands. He's covered in water, in cold, like a baby expunged from the womb, but there are warm hands. Having faced what he has faced, it is hard to find comfort in them, in the softness, in the warmth. But the agony subsides somewhat, his frayed, overstimulated nerves confusing the pain with the soothing touches, creating a cacophony of sensation.

Again: "Shhh." It makes him realize that the screams aren't coming from the well, but rather his own lips, and he abruptly stops. Bells in his ears. "This is only a taste. But well-borne, Minseok. Well-borne."

Well-borne, or well-born? Which is he? Minseok turns towards the voice, seeking answers, seeking something he can't define, let alone verbalize.

He has to move, or be moved, because then there is cloth beneath him and candles around him. While he can still feel the phantom remnants of knife-like cold, he's dry, now, or at least he thinks he is. Dry, and warm hands on him once more, on his shoulders, now bare. Down his chest, between his thighs.

There's moisture and heat at his throat, and he has to remember what a human mouth feels like, so different from the mouth of the well, but just as dangerous in a different way. He can't tell if it's a comforting touch, or a threatening one. He struggles to say something, but he can't form any words, and besides, he doesn't know if he means to call for more or call for help.

"That's it," comes a voice, warm daggers of breath against his throat. "Just like that. Your body has endured pain; now, let me give it pleasure."

Pleasure? Is that what this feeling is, the heat between his thighs? Filling him up to his very throat so that he can't breathe? This invasion, this desecration? Minseok closes his eyes, unable to resist the onslaught of feeling. He's damp again with some thick liquid, a residue that sticks flesh to flesh rather than dries off his body. Sweat, or the amniotic residue of the well?

He drifts into himself, or maybe away from himself, feeling the swell and ebb of this pleasure and disgust with sluggish, tenuous consciousness, until he loses his grip on that, too.

+++

He wakes up with his skin feeling too tight across his flesh and an agonizing pain in his chest. No, not in—on. He pushes past sleep and passes his hand down his sternum, surprised to feel a barrier of cloth. He swears that he had fallen asleep without clothes on, but here he is now, as clothed as he was before being lowered into the well.

He peels off the bandage he finds when he lifts up his shirt, revealing a wound as dark as any shadowed cave, as the spaces beneath beds and floorboards, and in the shape of what must be a Correspondence symbol, if its deliberate complexity is anything to go by. Blood oozes slowly from the flesh around it and is drawn into the scar. The myriad of candles in the room are not enough to light the wound. He sits up, ignoring his aches as best as he can, to angle his chest into the light, but no matter how the light strikes his skin, the scar remains black, pulling the flickering light in and devouring it entirely. If he touches it, he wonders if he'll feel mangled or sensitive flesh, or if his finger will disappear entirely.

He's too scared to find out.

"I see you've found your new scar."

The priest stands in the doorway, wearing his cassock and his smile, his small hand resting on the frame.

Minseok opens his mouth to reply, but only a hoarse sigh comes out at first. He gathers his voice in his chest with a cough and tries again, with moderate success: the words come, but grated, weak. "Did I die?" It's not the words he had meant to say, but Jongdae doesn't look surprised at all.

"You were marked by death," the priest replies, "but, no, you were very much alive the whole time."

Time—that's another important piece of information. "How long was I out for?"

"Only two days. It's the fastest I've ever seen anyone recover from getting a Weeping Scar." There's a hint of pride in his voice.

"I went into the well," Minseok says, trying to make sense of his memories. Everything is so unclear, and trying to sort out the timeline of his trial is like trying to navigate a dreadnought around glaciers in a fog bank. "How long was I in the well for?"

"You were submerged for no more than an hour," Jongdae says, and that seems wrong to Minseok, but he has no way to refute it. It's not important, he decides. Time breaks in the well.

"And then you brought me up?"

"Yes," Jongdae says. The candlelight makes his face austere, a flickering chiaroscuro, smile as sharp as a knife. "We dried you off and brought you here."

"And then . . . ?"

"And you slept," Jongdae says.

Minseok has half-formed visions of flesh and pleasure and pain, and he doubts that answer is the truth. Jongdae's eyes are challenging, though, and promising no good end to the line of questioning Minseok has half a mind to start.

Instead, he says, "Thank you for taking care of me."

Jongdae dips his head. "Of course. I've told you before, but here, we are nothing if not hospitable. And it's been so long since the well has feasted on nightmares as _satiating_ as yours. It was a mutually beneficial transaction."

Minseok falls back asleep soon after Jongdae takes his leave. Worshipers in their blood red albs flit in and out of his room from time to time to bring him food, change his bandages, and give him medicines, seeing to him as attentively as they do to their flocks of candles.

In the morning, he hobbles down to the docks. Jongin meets him on the deck like a nervous puppy, Sehun frowning closely behind him, and they follow him onto the ship "Well?" Luhan says imperiously in lieu of a greeting. "Let's see it, then."

The crew gapes at his fresh scar, both repulsed and morbidly intrigued. The skin around it is no longer inflamed, but the mark itself is still black, like a hole into another dimension drilled right into his chest. "How bad did it hurt?" Kyungsoo asks.

"Let's just say I won't be getting another one of these any time soon," Minseok says, smiling, and his crew laughs more out of relief than humor. Luhan tells him to put his shirt back on before he causes a scene, and Jongin finally stops dogging him, but not without a blush and a heartfelt _I'm glad you're safe, Captain._ They lift anchor, and all is right.

Minseok stomach growls, and an angry, ancient hunger twists in his gut. He watches the glow of the Chapel of Lights grow dimmer and dimmer as his ship pulls away into the darkness.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **+1 St Beau's Candle**
> 
> next chapter will be out on 10/11. thanks for the comments on the last chapter, i really loved reading them. 


	3. ST CERISE'S LESSON

There are monstrous things that exist in the Neath, and even more monstrous things in the Undersea. The darkness breeds strange things. The water breeds hungry ones.

Movement in the greenish water beneath them, barely illuminated by their ship lights, and Sehun just barely manages to shout a warning before a tentacle bursts out of the water. It thrashes around in the air, searching for their ship with uncontrolled movements, giving the crew a small window of time to get to their cannons.

The money earned from bringing the curator the Weeping Scar three months ago was more than enough to upgrade the forward and aft weapons, and Minseok is now more than ever grateful for it. The Caminus Yards' Bandersnatch is a mean torpedo launcher, and it proves its strength now as it lands hit after hit on the tentacles. Its sister cannon, the Damnation, is slower but just as mighty from where Chanyeol and Zitao man it from the aft. The two weapons together bore holes through the wriggling appendages.

But while they're powerful, they're also slow. The tentacles are fast, whip-like. They lash out at the ship. The sound of the hull cracking fills Minseok with a bone-deep dread. He forces himself to focus on one problem at a time, and pops off another deck cannon just in time to blow a hole through a tentacle that nearly hammers down on him.

They somehow beat the thing back down below the waves, and while his crew looks beleaguered and frightened, Minseok doesn't have time to coddle them. "Luhan, take a few men and check out the hull, and then take whatever resources we have that you need to repair it."

Luhan nods and beckons a few sailors to follow him down into the belly of the ship. Minseok turns his attention to the giant tentacle, once squirming and pulsating, now still. Their food stores are running dangerously low. It won't be appetizing, but if they sprinkle it with mutersalt, or chop it up and put it into mushroom soup, it will probably, hopefully, be edible.

But then Luhan comes out of the hull with a grave expression, and he tells Minseok that there's a bulkhead out. That they have to shed some weight if they want to make it all the way to the nearest port.

Minseok swears out loud, pinches his nose, and takes a deep breath before letting it out in a controlled stream. At times like these, his hunger, constant these days, becomes almost unbearable. Stress makes him long for the soothing, savory taste of meat on his tongue.

"Kyungsoo," says Minseok, "set a course to the nearest port."

"The islands moved recently, Captain," Kyungsoo says quietly. "The nearest confirmed port is back at Frostfound."

Minseok curses again, this time at his own forgetfulness. They just passed Frostfound, a glacial island untouched by human life, save a pitiable encampment that has no means to repair a ship. That was to the West. They can risk going South and hope to run into Polythreme instead of Port Cecil with its bare-boned shops, or worse, the Khanate, which has lots of resources but also lots of belligerence towards Londoners. Or, they can continue sailing East, which most likely means the resource-heavy Mount Palmerston or . . . or the Chapel of Lights, which is less overtly stocked but _generous_ with their hospitality.

Minseok thinks of teeth, of a knife-filled smile, and his stomach growls. "We go East." It's the safer bet anyways, he tells himself. He's not being selfish.

Kyungsoo regards him with a calculated gaze but then nods, turning heel to go to the deck house.

Minseok gives the order for Sehun, Zitao, and Jongin to push the tentacle overboard. It's too heavy, not nutrient-dense enough to warrant keeping it. Without waiting around to watch, he steps down into the hull to sort through what things they can afford to sink. Hunger, red and primal, rattles in his stomach.

The tentacle isn't the right kind of meat, anyways.

+++

Light in the distance, timidly pressing through the sheet of darkness. Minseok stands on the foredeck, eyes trained on it, waiting for it to become clearer so he can tell if it's the fiery head of Mount Palmerston or the gentle glow of the Chapel. The Neathy air is cool against his skin and smells of salt.

They'd lost two men during the attack. Minseok wonders if they'll be able to recruit one or two more at the next port. He knows they'll have better luck recruiting at Mount Palmerston, its hardened residents more suited to life at sea. But a part of Minseok longs for the Chapel.

Eventually, the light disperses into thousands of distinct small ones. Minseok's heart speeds up, and he leans a little bit farther on the deck wall.

The ship is chugging along slower than usual, even after shedding a sizable amount of cargo. There's a whole cabin filling up with water right now, and nothing short of shelling out the entire hold is going to bring them back up to speed. Minseok has all hands on deck right now, keeping everyone on high alert for any other unsavory encounters in the dark. They won't be able to outrun anything at this point, so avoiding before being spotted is the only way to go.

But by some miracle they make it to the port at the Chapel of Lights without another incident. The ship groans as they dock her, and, without being told, Luhan goes about finding a shipwright, or at least someone able to provide materials for repair. Chanyeol apprenticed under a shipbuilder back in London, and Yixing worked in the shipyard; if push comes to shove, they can do rudimentary repairs that will, with luck, be good enough to get them back home.

No one from the church itself comes to meet them at the docks, but Minseok gets the feeling that they're waiting for him anyways. After making sure his crew safely makes it to the tavern, he makes the trek up the hill to the church.

Curiously, he passes no worshipers or acolytes on the candlelit path, and as he draws closer, he realizes why: they're in the chapel itself listening to a sermon. A familiar voice, smooth and assertive, drifts down the hill, and if Minseok's feet speed up, there's no one there to call him out on his excitement.

The door, well-oiled, makes no sound as he eases it open. The pews are filled with the faithful, all turned towards Jongdae like surface flowers to the sun. Minseok is once again in awe of the priest's beauty as he stands there in the middle of the apse. He quietly moves closer. He finds a pillar behind the last row of pews, and he leans on it.

"There were three descents," Jongdae is saying, "before the betrayal."

Jongdae's eyes find his, and Minseok is pleased by the smile the he gets as a greeting. Jongdae holds his gaze as he continues: "The first descent was that which was given for that which was promised."

A curious thing happens, then: Minseok hears the words Jongdae says out loud, can see his lips synchronizing with those words, but in his head, he hears Jongdae's voice, louder: _The Drowned Man makes no promises to us. He gives us only lessons._ Minseok blinks, his brows furrowing.

Jongdae is still talking, still smiling. "For the second, the hunters of echoes remembered the ways of sunlight, and learnt the stories of the heart."

As though whispered in his ear, he hears Jongdae's voice again at the same time: _The Drowned Man's heart was flensed, and we will taste it._

"The third: O, the treacherous walkers of the river's shadow!" Jongdae cries, spreading out his arms. "They snared the echo-hunters!"

_This began the chain of tales which concluded in the Drowned Man's first feast. So praise that treachery._

The followers of the Drowned Man glorify treachery the way the followers of Christ glorify martyrdom. Jongdae speaks of cities fallen, and stories risen. These are the times the Earth opened. His red faith rose in the times after. Jongdae's voice doesn't deviate from his mouth again. Had he imagined the whole experience?

A shadowed figure watches from the darkest corner of the apse. It doesn't flicker in and out of sight this time, its lines remaining solid and tangible. But the shadows prevent Minseok from making out its details, and Jongdae's sermon draws his attention away from it soon enough, anyways. By the time the service is over, the figure has disappeared.

There is another feast. Minseok is still in awe of how quiet and efficient the acolytes are at bringing out tables and chairs and food into the chasm between the nave and the apse. Jennie is among them, and she flashes him a closed-mouthed smile when she sees him but doesn't stop to chat, kept busy by the preparations.

Minseok waits until all of the worshipers have full plates before approaching the table himself. He's already salivating. His hands tremble with desire. All of a sudden, he's not just hungry, but _ravening._ All of the hunger built up in him over the months is released like a broken dam. It's all he can do to keep himself from hunching over his plate and devouring everything on it right there at the buffet table. He forces himself to steadily load his plate with the red, juicy offerings, forces himself to take measured steps to the closest empty table.

He takes to the food the way a man in the desert takes to water: feverishly, without moderation, as though it might be taken away from him at any moment. When he's done, he wipes the juices off of his chin with his shirt sleeve. An acolyte takes his dish almost as soon as he sets his fork down. He meets Jongdae's eye just as the priest slips into the sacristy, and Minseok is quick to follow him.

Inside the sacristy, Jongdae stretches his arms over his head with a pleased groan. It's indecent. Even more indecent is the sinuous way his body curves into the air like a cat arching its back. He rolls his neck once, twice, before finally opening his eyes and smiling at Minseok, peering at him from the side. "Hello, Captain," he says, his voice sounding like the promise of a sin. "Welcome back. It has been a few months since you were last here."

Minseok hadn't thought that Jongdae would forget him, but hearing him reference their last meeting gives him pleasure anyways. "Your hospitality is as impeccable as before," Minseok says. "It's good to be back."

Jongdae takes out two wine glasses from the cabinet along with a bottle of spore-wine—another rare example of the 1868 First Sporing. Minseok again wonders what sort of connections Jongdae has to lay claim to such a luxury. But he doesn't make it a habit of questioning gifts, and he gratefully takes the full glass when it's offered to him.

"Is this a social call?" Jongdae asks once they're seated.

With an apologetic smile, Minseok says, "Unfortunately not. We were sailing West of here and planning on turning South once we skirted around a nasty fog bank. There are too many whirlpools out here to risk going through a bank. But we were attacked by a sea-monster, and our ship took substantial damage. This was the closest port."

"How fortuitous for you." Jongdae's smile is smaller now, the mien of one who feels more sly than amused. "We obviously have no shipyard, but what resources we can provide are yours, for a price. We have some wood stores. We don't have steel, but we do have wrought iron."

Minseok is impressed. Able to trade with the Surface Cities, London has these materials and more, but it's rare for a settlement this far North to have an excess of these commodities. Stone is easy enough to come by, and the wood and iron could be used for architecture, but to purchase or trade more than what a community needs is foolish at best.

"What can I offer you in exchange?" Minseok asks.

"We have no use for money, but our stores are running low. If we cannot feed our congregation, our mission must end." It makes sense with how edacious the Chapel's rituals are. "Can you provide? The fresher, the better."

Minseok resists the urge to curse. He knows it was the right choice to leave the monster tentacle behind. They never would have made it here otherwise. He _knows_ this. But the meat would have been the perfect offering, fresh and exotic. All Minseok has to offer is dried and canned goods, and even then, his own food supplies are running low. He doesn't think they can afford to offer more, not if they want to make it back to London.

His frustration must show on his face, because Jongdae's own countenance softens, pitying—or condescending. "Don't fret now, Captain. For you, a lesser price." He stands up and walks around Minseok's chair. A moment later, he feels hands on his shoulders, pressing into the tight muscles there. It's invasive, but not entirely unwelcome; Jongdae's fingers dig right into his sorest spots and begin to knead out the tension.

Lips by his ear. Minseok feels heat lick down his spine, pooling between his legs. "Post no guards on your ship tonight," Jongdae commands in a whisper. "Ask no questions. And in the morning, perhaps you'd like to join us for breakfast." He says it in the same voice that had whispered in his ear during the sermon.

_So praise that treachery._

And Minseok knows what Jongdae is offering. This is not one of the Chapel of Lights' many gestures of hospitality. This is an exchange of goods.

Commodities, he reminds himself. Commodities.

Something softer than fingers brushes across the thin skin at the side of his neck, followed by a huff of warm air. "What say you, Minseok?" Jongdae asks against his throat.

And what other choice does Minseok have besides to say "Yes?"

Jongdae's hands gently slide down Minseok's shoulders, slide off completely. He steps back around to stand right in front of Minseok, their knees knocking together. Jongdae's eyes burn like black flames, like Weeping Scars. They draw closer, and closer, and closer still, and then—

Then a kiss. Jongdae's mouth is as soft as he maybe remembers it from the experience after the well, when Jongdae maybe fucked him or when Minseok maybe hallucinated it. Their lips slot together and cling. There's a rhythm of mouthing and sucking, and Minseok breathes out a sigh of pleasure when Jongdae's tongue swipes across his upper lip. When they part, Jongdae's smile has teeth as sharp as diamonds or the knives butchers use to flense the tough skin off of sharks. It fills Minseok with equal parts want and dread.

"Stay after breakfast tomorrow," Jongdae says. "I'll have a special service just for you." The words sound like they have a second, darker meaning, but the fervor in Jongdae's gaze is one of fanaticism, not lust. Minseok agrees anyways, and leaves the church with heat between his thighs and red inside his stomach.

+++

The Chapel's congregation are soft-footed. No one on board hears them come or go. In the morning, Jongin's bed is empty. Minseok diverts his crew's concerns, redirects Luhan's questions, and evades Sehun's angry, increasingly panicked accusations. And as he eats a warm, red breakfast in the church's crypt, he feels something in the dark reach out and touch a part of him that was never supposed to be touched. Twists it, molds it into something wretched and rotten and red.

Commodities, he reminds himself one last time before he swallows. From across the table, Jongdae smiles.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **+1 St Cerise's Candle**
> 
> y'all knew this was coming 


	4. ST DESTIN'S LESSON

After their feast, Jongdae leads Minseok back to the church. There's no one there—not a single acolyte, worshiper, or clergyman in sight. The pews remain empty, the halls forlorn. Their steps are strangely muted as Minseok follows Jongdae between the pews, covering the length of the nave and then across the threshold into the chancel. The emptiness bears down on them.

The altar looms over them. On its lacquered surface are seven tall, unlit candles, one for each lesson of the Chapel. This close, the candlelight bounces off of the cochineal-colored windows, bathing them in carmine. At the foot of the altar, Jongdae gently presses Minseok's shoulders, and Minseok understands that he is to kneel there. On the ground is a tall, translucent candle, standing lonely and proud. A phrase is etched into the stone floor in front of it: "FOR I WAS AN HUNGERED AND YE GAVE ME MEAT."

_The lesson which is not,_ Jongdae says, or maybe doesn't say; Minseok hears the words clearly, hears Jongdae's voice, but the silence of the Chapel is unbroken.

The priest snuffs a translucent candle with a capped rod. He bows his head, and leaves Minseok alone in the chapel. False starlight gleams on the crimson-flooded floor. And soon, the emptiness closes in on him so tightly, so thoroughly, that he too becomes empty of everything save for his red hunger. It sinks under his skin and shells out the meat of him. He surrenders his thoughts, his will, his very soul. It's the same sort of hollow that slumbers in the bowels of the well. The silence roars.

No one comes. No one sits in the pews beside him. No one stands by the altar and speaks of the opening of the Gate and the anger of the Flukes and the cold machinations of the White. No one is brown as bone and eyeless as a desert. No one gifts him a secret. He hears no one speak.

It's devastation. It's rebirth.

When Jongdae comes to collect him, he is shaking with the new knowledge with which he has been filled. "Have you surrendered?" he asks, and Minseok's mouth opens and closes like the fish in that second sermon, the lesson of St Beau. _I will set the hook in your lip,_ Jongdae had promised, and Minseok feels the yank of it now. Much gentler are Jongdae's hands on his shoulders, his waist, guiding him somewhere the candlelight burns softly but grants no warmth. It's a bedroom. Perhaps it's the same one that Minseok woke up in after earning his Weeping Scar.

Jongdae coaxes Minseok down to sit on the bed and slowly bends down to meet him. His mouth tastes not of the red, but of its stain, the darkness and the sharpness of it. Jongdae kisses slow and dirty with the kind of filthy, sensual tongue-work that Minseok would expect from a prostitute, not a holy man.

When Jongdae breaks away to ease Minseok onto his back, Minseok asks, "Why are you doing this? Does your faith have no tenets barring priests from intimacy?" 

"Oh, Captain," Jongdae chuckles. He teases Minseok's buttons out of their holes. "There are many hungers of the flesh. Dedicating yourself to one satiety does not mean you should deprive yourself of other delights."

Minseok's hand rises to the side of Jongdae's neck, and he slides his lips over Jongdae's chin. "Why me?" he mutters.

"You are special," Jongdae says while Minseok hauls the priest forward with the grip on his neck. Jongdae slides easily into the space between Minseok's legs. "I may be hospitable, as I've told you before. But I am also . . . _greedy."_ He says this with a body roll that has Minseok humming, pleased by how it makes Jongdae press up against him in all the right places.

Jongdae breaks free of Minseok's hold to grab his jaw, moving it to the side to expose his throat. The priest's mouth descends, and the feeling of lips and tongue against the thin skin there is so familiar. He remembers the unholy matrimony of pleasure and pain in the dark, the remnants of a well's anger overcome with a sweet desecration.

"You raped me," Minseok says—not an accusation, but a truth.

Jongdae's eyes bear a challenge, a taunt, as he undoes Minseok's pants. "There are many hungers of the flesh," he repeats. "And after we raised you out of the well, you were nothing if not a feast." A hand on Minseok's cock, now, and Minseok moans without restraint. Jongdae's eyes glint with interest.

Jongdae's cassock is attractive on him, but Minseok damns the amount of buttons it has as he undoes them one by one. Jongdae laughs at his toil and finally takes pity on him, rising off the bed completely to shuck off his garments. His naked body in the candlelight would make even the most philistine of men appreciate the image. The priest opens a candle-topped drawer next to the bed and retrieves a glass jar which he sets on the floor within arms-reach. He gazes upon Minseok's stretched-out body, taking his fill, then climbs across the bed to cover that body with his own. They slot together like puzzle pieces, and Minseok immediately hooks his leg around Jongdae to rut their bodies together. The heat and hardness of Jongdae's cock feels delicious against Minseok's, and Minseok makes his pleasure known with a biting kiss.

Jongdae opens the bottle and dips his fingers in. When he takes them out, they're glistening with oil, and he doesn't have to ask for Minseok to plant his feet on the bed and spread his thighs. He sinks his fingers in, and Minseok's body accepts easily, even greedily. Jongdae fingers him with the methodical relentlessness of a machine. He scrapes his teeth on the inside of Minseok's knee, watching Minseok's face with eyes like black holes, eyes where light goes to die. He crooks his fingers, digs them in where it feels best, and watches Minseok writhe in the same fascinated way someone might watch an exotic animal.

_Playing with his food,_ Minseok thinks. Then his capacity to think at all is driven out when Jongdae replaces his fingers.

Jongdae's cock is thick, spears Minseok open just right. It aches in a way that Minseok can't get enough of, and it's only made better by the sweet, slow drag of the first thrust, the second. Jongdae looms over him, his hands planted on the bed to Minseok's sides. Minseok scrapes his fingernails down Jongdae's torso, leaving red gouges, and Jongdae leans down to bite in retaliation, his teeth briery on Minseok's shoulder, his collar, and the pain makes the pleasure all the sweeter, the intensity of it driving Minseok higher and higher. When the burn of penetration grows too dull, Minseok brings his hands to Jongdae's ass to haul him forward harder, faster. Jongdae's laugh is breathless and vaguely condescending in his ear, but he concedes, giving Minseok the fucking he craves.

"I want you to come for me," Jongdae huffs out. "Show me, Minseok. Give me your pleasure."

"Take it from me," Minseok challenges. Jongdae grins, undaunted, and sits up straight, putting his weight on his knees. His hands, vice-like, cant Minseok's hips up higher, holding them there as he snaps his own hips forward. The new angle has Minseok keening, his eyes wide but unseeing. It's devastating, the new feeling. His toes cramp with how hard he curls them, his thighs shake with strain, but even that only amplifies everything.

Minseok is filled with pleasure, filled with a thick cock, and when he is filled beyond capacity, he cries out and comes. Jongdae huffs out a laugh that quickly turns into a groan as Minseok clamps down, his body taut with the aftershocks of his climax. Jongdae's final thrusts are accompanied by deep, short groans, and he comes with a sigh so sinful that Minseok thinks it will echo in his thoughts every time he comes from now on.

In the cool air of the room, their sweat turns tepid, then evaporates. Their breathing slowly evens out. Minseok drowsily watches a candle on a shelf, sighing softly when he feels Jongdae's soft lips against his shoulder blade, a hand on his waist. The priest's mouth feels like the sheath of a blade.

"How is your appetite?" Jongdae asks. "I'm feeling peckish."

Minseok is always hungry. He pits his post-coital sluggishness against his hunger, and his hunger comes out victorious. "I could eat." His stomach growls. At the base of Minseok's neck he feels Jongdae unsheathe his teeth in a pleased smile.

+++

After they leave port and after Luhan swindles Minseok out of his clothes and into his bed, he presses his fingers into the bruises splattered across Minseok's shoulders and chest, frowning. "Are you sure you know what you're doing?" he asks.

His worry is uncharacteristic of him and, more importantly, annoying. Minseok bites the frown off of Luhan's mouth and does not answer.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **+1 St Destin's Candle**


	5. ST ERZULIE'S LESSON

The lesson of St Destin has shown him a new darkness that had thus far been out of Minseok's reach.

His crew looks at him with blatant distrust. They avoid being alone with him for too long. Sehun's eyes have a steely sharpness in them these days, and his words are clipped and tight. Sometimes Luhan looks like he's going to say something but thinks better of it. No one talks about Jongin anymore.

He knows how to recognize the red taint in others now. He walks the streets of Gaider's Mourn, waiting for Luhan to finish compiling the port report; they'll sell it back to Kris for a little extra money when they return to London. A street-vendor shouts out, "Who will try? Who will buy?" He turns skewers on a grill.

Minseok sees the familiar hunger at the edges of his mouth, in the whites of his eyes. The food on his grill looks juicy and smells savory, but Minseok knows with only one glance that it's not quite as _hearty_ as the stuff he craves. "Do you have anything more . . . robust?"

"Ah," the vendor says, his voice dropping under the din of the marketplace. "A red friend. Another meal, then." The vendor winks and produces a usefully anonymous skewer of meat.

Minseok gives his crew shore leave in London, and he's not surprised when, later, two sailors come up to him and quietly announce their permanent departure from his ship. They don't give him a reason. They also don't look him in the eye, and that itself is telling enough. He gives them their final wages and sends them off. After they're gone, he comes up behind Luhan, who always waits for the last of the crew to leave before he goes off as well.

"Are they gone for good?" Luhan asks.

"Seems like it. Why don't you see if you can hire on some more while you're terrorizing London? Buy a few drinks." He slips a few coins into Luhan's pocket and then amicably pats his ass.

"Where are you going to be?"

"The Admiralty's office," says Minseok. "I have to submit my port reports to Kris. Besides, it's been a while since I've visited him."

"Ah, that's right. You have friends in high places. Must be nice."

"Don't be jealous," Minseok scolds. "I don't get any benefits from being friends with the Admiral. I get nagged."

Luhan laughs and waves him off.

The shipyard is as boisterous as ever. Sailors cheerfully swear at each other as their captains bark orders at them. Others barter with shipwrights over costs of repairs, and officious merchants push the newest canon models on disinterested bystanders. Urchin children dart over and under obstacles, relieving unsuspecting victims of their pocket money. Minseok has to constantly dodge people carrying cargo, dipping under beams and sidestepping sailors who can't see over the massive crates in their arms.

The Admiralty Survey Office is, in contrast to the shipyard, solemn, dark. There's a new secretary at the front desk, which means Minseok isn't immediately ushered into Kris's personal office. "I'm sorry, sir, but if you don't have an appointment, I can't let you in. The Admiral is a busy man."

"I'm a friend," Minseok insists.

It's clear that they don't believe him, glancing at the stack of reports in his hands. "Then visit him during his off-hours," they say crossly.

Just when Minseok accepts his defeat, Kris himself appears around the corner. "Minseok? I thought that was your voice I heard, but I was sure I was imagining it at first. It's been too long." To the secretary, he says, "I can make time for an old friend. Thank you for being so dutiful."

The secretary narrows their eyes at Minseok for a beat but goes back to their ledger without comment.

Once in Kris's office, Minseok says, "I like your old secretary better. She let me bother you whenever I pleased."

"I liked her too," Kris agrees, "but she earned her retirement. And with the new secretary, I get more things done. Less people interrupt my work." Kris sits down in his chair, and Minseok is struck once again by how much his friend looks the part of the grave Admiral. No one would expect this man to have once been a grubby-handed, dirty-faced Urchin with a vocabulary that would put a sailor's to shame. "So, what do you have for me?"

Minseok passes over the stack of reports. He knows Kris laments the Admiralty's long-gone picket fleets and intelligence networks, but it just means that captains like himself get paid for information collected about the islands they dock at.

Kris's reactions to reports always make Minseok laugh. The Admiral's usually stoic expression gives way to bulging eyes, ugly smiles, and unprofessional noises of irritation or bafflement. As he gets to the last report, a folded piece of paper slips out onto the desk. Kris raises an eyebrow at Minseok, and Minseok raises his own and shakes his head in return—he doesn't know what it is. Did Luhan forget a personal note in there?

Kris holds onto the note but doesn't read it yet, opting instead to finish the last report. "So you did go to the Chapel of Lights," he says.

Minseok hums his confirmation. As though conditioned, his stomach quietly rumbles.

Kris is quiet while he finishes reading the report, his expression abstruse. At the end, he sighs, leaning back in his chair and pinching the bridge of his nose. "There's something about the sea that breeds heresy and dissent," he says. "I genuinely think we need to send the Bishop of Southwark out for a good bit of Christian shouting."

"That won't be necessary," Minseok says. It comes out sharper than he means to, and he forces his voice to be steady and calm as he says, "They're harmless, really. Strange rituals, but they're not armed whatsoever. They don't even have ships of their own, so I doubt they'll be leaving their island any time soon. They're not a threat."

Kris watches him silently over the top of the report. He tosses the stack of papers onto the desk and picks up the note, delicately unfolding it. As he reads it, his brows draw downwards more and more, and by the time he looks up again, they're locked in a frown.

"This says that the crew has concerns about your involvement with the Chapel."

Minseok carefully keeps his face impassive even while he beats down the urge to snarl. Luhan can't have slipped that in, can he? No, Luhan is loyal. That's one of the biggest reasons, if not _the_ biggest reason, that he's Minseok's first officer. Who would have the gall to sneak a note to the Admiral right under Minseok's nose? "What, specifically, are their concerns?"

"What do you think their concerns are?" Kris asks.

Keeping the snarl down is harder now, as though his teeth are pushing against the inside of his mouth. "Don't treat me like a child who doesn't know better. If someone in my crew has concerns about me, they should bring them up to me themselves instead of tattling to my friends."

Kris blinks, not bothering to hide his surprise at Minseok's sharp retort. "Alright," he says uncomfortably. "You're right. I'm sorry. I didn't mean to be patronizing, I just wanted to hear your side of the story."

Minseok breathes in, willing himself to calm. "What story?"

"About a sailor that disappeared while you were at the Chapel. Some of your crew have concerns that you had a hand with his disappearance."

Ah. That solves the mystery of who wrote the note, then.

"The Undersea is dangerous," Minseok reasons. The words of his lessons bubble up, lending him the words to hide his treachery. "There are many evils in the Neath, and the farther away from London, the more unchecked they are. We go through sailors like the rich go through hats. You _know_ that, Kris. I regret what happened to Jongin. He was an Urchin like us, and so I was fond of him. But he was just one more sailor, and not worth this fuss."

"You're right," Kris repeats, fidgeting.

The meeting soured, Minseok doesn't stick around after Kris pays him for the reports. He shuts the door to the office, and, alone in the hallway, pauses.

_I regret what happened to Jongin._ Does he? He thinks of the sailor, of the earnest, puppy-like eyes, the sun-kissed skin tone so rare in the Neath, the excessive, desperate urge to please. He had loved Jongin, as much as he had tried to remind himself that Jongin was as much of a resource as a crate of dried food or a bin of coal. Jongin had practically idolized him. If he could go back in time and refuse Jongdae's trade, would he? _I regret what happened. I regret . . ._ Does he? Does he?

A rattling in his stomach, angry and demanding. A well-roar in his ears. Thoughts of Jongin are immediately shuttered by hunger, by red.

He has his answer.

As he leaves the Admiralty Survey Office, he wonders if there's a slaughterhouse in London that can meet his particular needs.

Shore leave comes and goes. Luhan hires on three more sailors, two of them young and eager, the third experienced but disillusioned. Minseok orders Kyungsoo to set a course for Port Cecil. By the time they arrive, he'll have an excuse ready to provide when he makes the Chapel their next destination.

He decides against confronting Sehun about the note, but the look he gives him across the deck is threatening. Sehun swallows hard but meets his gaze head-on. Minseok can taste his defiance at the back of his throat.

+++

"The desires of the heights," Jongdae declares, "are mirrored in the depths."

Minseok's ship had docked less than an hour before and had followed the crowds up the candlelit path to the church, leaving Luhan in charge for the night. All the faithful of the Chapel are gathered, cheeks flushed and eyes gleaming. Excitement ripples through the congregation as they bob and sway to the natural cadence of the priest and his lesson.

"Do you recall how It came to that place? And they sang of their lightnings and shapeful disgrace? And It tilted our vanes and ennobled Its spires. They welcomed It then and commingled all choirs."

Jongdae's arms spread wide, his palms uplifted in invitation. Acolytes sweep in behind him like ghosts, carrying tables and platters and bottles of spore-wine. "Now," he declares. "Now, O thou faithful, we shall commingle our choirs. And then we shall feast."

The feast is grander than any the Chapel has provided yet. Tender white meats and curried vegetables; sauces red and gold and spiced.

The vegetables are fresh, verdant, and tender. Peppers as crisp as winter air and parsnips sweet and thick. There is spring onions and garlic and chili and rice. Mountains of couscous and beans and saffron.

Desserts, too, unlike the usual feasts; sweets to balance the savory. There are chocolates, Victoria Sponges, a mousse. The richest sticky toffee pudding Minseok has ever laid eyes upon. There is even a trifle.

But it is the meat that the congregation descends upon like carrion birds on a fresh carcass. It would put the Queen's table to shame. The game meats are laid out, immaculately quartered, across the lacquered tables. Some are succulently brown, and some are seared with a lattice of black griddle-lines. But the real treat are the meats so rare that they're still dripping and pink.

Rich and ripe and suckling. Minseok gnaws the meat off of the very last bone.

The feast doesn't quell Minseok's hunger. In fact, it leaves Minseok _hungrier._ His eyes hone in on the buffet tables, disappointed when he only sees crumbs and juices left over.

Jongdae stands in the shadows next to the hooded creature with the gaping mouth and browned, leathery skin. The priest is talking in low tones, pausing to let his companion speak, but that gaping mouth doesn't move at all. Jongdae glances at Minseok, his gaze as dark as ever, and Minseok is overcome with a hunger of a different kind.

He rises, and as he draws nearer, the apse-watcher sinks back into the shadows, disappearing completely from sight. "Always a welcome sight, Captain," Jongdae greets. He opens his mouth to say more, but Minseok cuts him off by grabbing the priest's arm just above his elbow, gripping hard. Jongdae blinks, the only indication of surprise.

Minseok drags Jongdae over to the sacristy. He slams the door behind them and shoves the priest up against it. To his credit, Jongdae doesn't even flinch, and rather than startled, he looks slightly irritated. "This is hardly a proper greeting," he says.

Minseok can't argue that. He grips Jongdae's shoulders tighter and feels dimly satisfied at the subsequent wince. He dips forward, sidling his nose under the cut of Jongdae's jaw. "You've made a glutton of me," he answers, or maybe it's an accusation.

Maybe it's gratitude.

Jongdae relaxes, his hands threading through Minseok's hair and holding him there against his neck. "Is that right? It shouldn't be a problem; I never let you go hungry here. In fact, I think I spoil you, Captain."

"You told me there were many hungers of the flesh," Minseok breathes wetly into Jongdae's skin. "Let me partake in you. Let me indulge."

With a mean twist of his fingers, Jongdae says, "Always."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **+1 St Erzulie's Candle**


	6. ST FORTHIGAN'S LESSON

Away with the wolves.

"Sclera," the priest intones. "Limbus. Noctis. Animus." As Minseok listens, his vision clouds with darkness, turning Jongdae into a stumped shape in the murk. "If the Sun is Its master, let the Sun be sunken, let the currents rush in, the strange winds and particle-trades, the wave that trembles and the great Curve." He lifts his hand in blessing. "You who remain, you know that there is no betrayal. The Drowned Man was torn that he might feed us. The White comes to fulfill the frozen law. The seventh city will never fall, and all of us will live."

His words hang in Minseok's heart like lanterns. Not the first half; that was jargon. But the second, about traitors and feasts. The watcher in the apse lifts its hand. A greeting? A warning? Or is it a beckoning?

Urgency takes Minseok by the chest, gripping, squeezing. This is the moment. He _understands_ now.

He rises.

"Forthigan invited them in, until Arthur threw them back," Minseok declares, his voice filling up the entire expanse of the church. _"Back and forth again._ Every invitation is also a betrayal. This is the circle, now complete. Gawain remains." Minseok meets Jongdae's black eyes. _"Give me my candle."_

The congregation rises, muttering with shock, but the priest quells it. He watches Minseok with an interest Jongdae has never shown before, one tinted with what Minseok might even call marvel. Slowly, he asks, "Your candle? Do you understand what it is you ask?"

But that's enough of him, of his condescension. Minseok is tired of his patter and sophistry. There are more important matters. He struts down the aisle, past the wide-eyed worshipers and their awe-struck priest. He approaches the altar and its seven candles, but ignores the first six, reaching for the seventh. It pulses in his grip, and as he stares at it, it _(he?)_ stares back. From a shadowed corner, the leathery-skinned figure breathes a raspy sigh.

Minseok puts the candle back in its holder. Jongdae has a new smile on his face—eager, perhaps. The eyes of the faithful shine like candles, but dim. Not the right candle. Not the right one.

After the sermon, and after its ritualistic feast, Minseok waits for Jongdae in the sacristy. There's a bundle of new candles on the desk, and Minseok takes one out to toy with it, rolling it between his fingers and feeling its waxy surface. He can almost taste its tallow at the back of his mouth.

He doesn't have to wait long. When Jongdae enters the office, he immediately goes to Minseok, wrapping his arms around him and sighing into the groove between his neck and shoulder. "I've never had anyone interrupt my sermon before. I have to admit, it was somewhat exhilarating, and very infuriating. For a moment I considered killing you."

Minseok doesn't doubt that, but he also has bigger concerns and more pressing questions. "What is the thing that lives in the Chapel?" Minseok asks. "The creature in the cloak, with the gaping mouth."

Jongdae doesn't answer right away, but eventually says, "He is the Watcher. He is the last one to have found the candle of St Gawain."

"How?"

"St Gawain's candle can be obtained," he says in lieu of a true answer, "but the price will be high."

"The prices of all your lessons are high," Minseok snaps. "Give me my candle."

"This lesson is not mine to teach," Jongdae replies, "and the candle is not mine to give." The priest runs a hand through Minseok's hair, the touch soothing away his impatience . . . for now. He turns his head, seeking out Jongdae's mouth with his own, and sighs when they meet. "You will know," Jongdae promises. "You will know when you've learned the lesson. And when you do, come back to me. And I will make you your candle."

**+++**

Kyungsoo makes a mistake.

"Captain," he says, voice wavering. Minseok has never seen the navigator this shaken before. "Captain, I—"

When it comes to navigators, Kyungsoo is the best of the best. That's why Minseok recruited him. But in a world of darkness, without neither sun nor stars to guide them, with islands that are constantly moving, navigation is difficult at best. Minseok knows what Kyungsoo is trying to say, and can't blame him. He's still a good navigator; Minseok himself would never have noticed that the course was wrong. "It's okay, Kyungsoo," Minseok lies. "I don't blame you." _That_ isn't a lie, at least.

And so by the time he realizes that he's set a course for Northeast and not East, they're well and truly lost. There are no islands out here, just an expanse of uninterrupted black waters.

During the first pangs of hunger, the crew is loud, distracting themselves with song and gambling and merry-making. But as the days crawl on, and one meal a day turns to half, and half a meal turns to half of that, they grow quieter and quieter still. People only speak to give tense, clipped answers, or to snap at the smallest transgression. Soon, plates are empty. Cups are dry.

The ship itself feels hungry. Minseok's steps echo a little louder when he walks through the hull, the empty space gobbling up the morsels of sound. The crew is too weak to shy away from him as he passes, now. People go up to the deck and stare off into the distance, waiting for something other than water to cut out of the hoar of the fog. It's a futile effort.

Hunger is a familiar menace to Minseok, but not to his crew. There's a sick fascination in seeing the despair turn to desperation because while he knows what it's like to be ravening, it's a different experience to witness it in others.

Some can't take it, the hunger. Starvation does strange things to people. It drives them mad. It makes them despair the way other afflictions don't. They won't make it, Minseok realizes. Not like this. Something has to change.

"Captain," Chanyeol says, interrupting Minseok from where he sits at his desk in the deckhouse. He lurks in the door frame, looking anxious and vaguely sick. "Captain, there's been—" He pauses to clear his throat, his voice dry and raw from the lack of use. He tries again, with more success: "There's been an incident."

"That doesn't sound good," Minseok says carefully.

Chanyeol picks at a thread on his shirtsleeve and doesn't say anything, and Minseok understands that this is a problem he has to physically see. He stands up and follows Chanyeol out of the deckhouse and down into the hull. The deck is strangely deserted, and he discovers why as soon as Chanyeol leads him to the engine room.

Between the machinery powering the steam engine, the sailors wedge themselves into a tight crowd. Chanyeol pushes past them, making a path for Minseok, but it's unnecessary, as Minseok can see the spectacle before he gets to the center anyways: after all, it hangs above them from a beam on the ceiling. It hangs above them from the cradle of a noose.

"Yixing . . ." Luhan says, but he can't say more than that. The two of them had joined Minseok's crew together, were as thick as the thieves they had once been before they were sailors.

"Get him down," Minseok says, but no one makes a move. He sighs and moves forward, taking out a pocket knife from his coat as he does. He can just barely reach the rope, but manages to cut it right behind Yixing's neck. He snakes his arm around the torso as the body begins to fall. Yixing's head falls against his shoulder, and cheek to albescent cheek, Minseok can feel how cold death has made Yixing. It's unnatural and repulsive.

It's also a gift.

He looks around at the gaunt faces, the bulging eyes staring at him, waiting for his response. Minseok lowers the body onto the ground and puts on his best expression of sympathy. "Yixing was a good sailor," he says, "and a good man. But we need to view this as a blessing. Our situation is dire, and sometimes extreme measures need to be taken to keep going."

It dawns on them, one by one. He watches the knee-jerk looks of horror, and the slow turning of horror to contemplation.

Yes. Starvation does strange things to people.

_"No,"_ comes Sehun's voice immediately, and he shoves his way out of the crowd. He looks absolutely murderous, and he whips his fierce expression on the crowd, wielding his angry words like weapons. "We aren't monsters. How could you even consider that?"

"Sehun," Zitao warns, but he looks uncomfortable, unsure.

"No," Sehun repeats, turning on Zitao. "You know it too, don't you? We all do. We all know what happened to Jongin." He faces Minseok again, shaking with rage. "The others, they don't want to believe it, but we all know it's true. How could you, you sick fuck? How can you even call yourself human?" By the end of his outburst, tears run down his face. "He trusted you. He _loved_ you! And _you ate him!"_

Minseok strikes Sehun across the face, hard enough to make him stagger backwards into Kyungsoo, and the navigator, dazed, barely manages to steady him.

"Watch what you say, Sehun," Minseok coldly says. "I won't tolerate any more baseless accusations on my ship." He lets the threat hang heavy in the air, and while Sehun's lip curls up, he quiets.

Secretly, though, the mention of Minseok's betrayal brings forth memories of more prosperous times, of a table filled with fresh vegetables, ripe fruits, and luscious meats, red meats, meats that leave juices running down his chin. Jongin's flesh had been so tender. What Minseok wouldn't give to have such a delicacy now—

And Yixing, his body is already going cold. If they're to make it enjoyable at all, they need to prepare it now. Minseok picks up the body again, fixing his crew in a pointed stare.

"He is dead," Minseok says, "and we will live."

The pumps and pipes chug on. With a quaking voice, Luhan says, "Dismissed."

Sehun and the other higher-minded lock themselves away, hiding from the red night. The others are past the edge of desperation, and help Minseok take the body to the kitchen. They watch how Minseok sloughs off the skin, quarters the meat into more manageable slices. He keeps a solemn mien, but he can't stop his hands from shaking.

If he could, he'd serve up this meat still dripping with juices. He'd sear the outsides, leaving the insides bloody and succulent. He'd bake it with potatoes and mushrooms, if they hadn't eaten all of them already. As it stands, he minces the flesh and soaks them in water, boils it into a soup flavored by what small amount of mutersalt they have left. It's less offensive to his crew when it looks and tastes more like cubed chicken in a savory broth, and getting them to eat is more important right now than satiating the red voice inside of his head.

This is not a betrayal, but an offering. Yixing sacrificed himself just like the Drowned Man had, that he might feed them.

All who sit at the table are speechless during the meal, even going as far as trying to muffle the sounds of their spoons scraping the bottom of their bowls. Like feeding coal into the engine's fires, Minseok feels each scoop return strength to his body. Luhan silently cries. He takes three bites before he finally chokes on the last spoonful, letting the chunk of meat fall out of his mouth and back into his bowl with a wet _plop._ He almost topples over his chair in his haste to escape the room.

More for them. Minseok pours out the bowl into equal portions for the few who remain.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **+1 St Forthigan's Candle**
> 
> there's just something filthier about saying it out loud, you know? 


	7. ST GAWAIN'S LESSON

Sehun comes out once after the red night, and Minseok is certain the only reason for that is to see who partook in the feast. Then he locks himself away again. Minseok doesn't make him come out to help. Let him hide. Let him be angry and marinate in his revenge fantasies. Minseok did what was best for his crew. They're stronger now, the ones that ate. Able to sail the new course Kyungsoo sets, able to tend to the ship to keep it going, even if they're not able to look each other in the eyes.

Luhan, too, isn't quite right after that. He sometimes puts a hand to his own throat when he thinks no one is watching him, squeezing gently with a haunted look on his face. Minseok finds him in unexpected corners, crouched down on the balls of his feet, slumping his weight against the walls and scraping his fingernails—what's left of them, seeing as they've all eaten their nails to the quicks by now—into the wood. He looks gaunt and ashen in a way that the other starved sailors don't.

A few days later, they almost wreck the hull in the shoals of Irem. They dock the ship and fall upon the tavern like sharks on a whale calf, mad with hunger, and the tavern-keeps look terrified by their rapaciousness but keep the tables well-stocked with fresh fish, mushroom stew, and spore ale. It's one of the most bland meals Minseok has ever eaten, but his crew eats as if they're, well, starving. He personally pays for the entire meal. No one thanks him. He is not surprised.

+++

Luhan watches Minseok plot the next path. His incredulous sigh rattles in the air. "Do we really have to go back to the Chapel of Lights, Minseok?" he asks. "Can't we be done?"

"One last time," Minseok promises. "And never again."

+++

The Chapel of Lights, when they dock, has the eerie quiet of a sepulcher. After stopping at Irem, their stores don't need more food, but he buys a few crates of it anyways from a somber shopkeeper near the docks. It loosens the tension in the crew's shoulders, the assurance of food.

Against the desperation he felt the last time he was here, Minseok is calm, now, almost impassive, as he walks up the familiar path to the Chapel. He knows what must be done, and he feels the knowledge of it weighing heavily on his mind.

He finds Jongdae alone in front of the church. He has a long candlestick in hand, using its flame to light the wicks of others. Minseok waits for him to straighten, then calls out the priest's name. Jongdae looks surprised, then pleased, to see him. "You're back rather soon, aren't you, Captain?" He blows out the candle, his cheeks briefly hollowing in a way that sends a ghost of heat curling through his gut.

"I'm ready for my candle now," Minseok says.

"Have you learned the lesson?"

And in the soft light of thousands of candles, he whispers his lesson to the smiling priest. He thinks of Jongin and the beautiful shade of his skin, the love in his eyes. He thinks of Yixing, his dimples, the way Luhan couldn't choke him down. Of Sehun and his undiluted rage.

"Yes, _yes,"_ Jongdae whispers reverently. Gentler than he'd ever been before, he reaches up and cups Minseok's face. "Are you ready?"

A reckoning is not to be postponed indefinitely, and Minseok has done so much harm. "Yes," he breathes.

Jongdae, almost buzzing with excitement, leads Minseok to the altar and the seven candles lined there. After Minseok kneels, Jongdae raises the long candlestick, using the fiery head of another candle to re-light the wick. He offers it to Minseok. The priest's hands are shaking.

"Speak the words," Jongdae rasps.

The words rise up from the lessons he has learned. They're second nature, and spill out like wine cascading over the sides of a chalice. "Now we have the wax, which is the streak beneath our skin," Minseok hears himself say. He lights the first candle and the second, the candles of St Arthur and St Beau.

"—and the wick, which is the faith we have skeined." Next, the candle of St Cerise, and next, the candle of St Destin.

"—and the tinder, which is the harm we have done to those who loved us." And oh, how he has done so much harm. Now St Erzulie. Now St Forthigan.

"—and the flint, which is the name," _no,_ "the Name, the treasure of music stilled." The candle of St Gawain is not Minseok's candle. Rather, his candle will replace it. It's ironic; the one candle he desires the most is the one which he will never see burn.

He will burn. He will _burn._

"Now." Jongdae's voice quivers. "It will hurt, we must render ourselves a little, there will be scars, but one more scar, what is that?"

One more scar. What is that?

"Yes," the Priest agrees, his smile broader than ever, almost innocent in his unadulterated happiness. "You will be a candle for us all."

Someone stands at the back of the chapel. Drapes stir. A curved blade glitters. For the first time, the watcher is unhooded, revealing the brown-boned, skinless scarecrow, tattered into tendoned gristle. Where its eyes should be are instead two blazing glyphs. It carries a large wooden block as though it weighs nothing, and when it sets the block in front of Minseok, the stench of leather fills his nose.

There is a hollow in the block. It's the perfect size for a throat.

Minseok rests his head on the hollow like resting his head on a lover's lap. He hears Jongdae's rapturous sigh, and the shuffle of the watcher moving forward.

Minseok keeps his eyes trained on the line of candles. He can practically taste the tallow, the smooth heaviness of it. As the axe comes down, he thinks, _the lights are so beautiful tonight they are so beautiful the lights—_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **+1 St Gawain's Candle**


	8. LESSONS OF THE CHAPEL: A MEMOIR

After the sacrifice, when the captain's neck has been cleanly severed and his blood pooled on the steps, the pithing begins. Jongdae lets the acolytes begin the process while he pries the curved axe from the Watcher's hands. "Very good," he says, rubbing the corpse-like hands until they're no longer tense. "You served so well." He releases one hand, but the other he keeps in his own grasp, and he uses the hold to lead the Watcher out of the chapel. They follow the path down to the sea. The well rumbles in undiluted satisfaction as they pass, and Jongdae feels the Watcher's fingers twitch.

They stand on the highest point of the island: a cliff overlooking the hungry waves that leap out of the sea, smashing against the cliff-side. Jongdae turns the Watcher so that they face each other, and his smile is full of pride, of righteousness. "You served the Drowned Man so well," Jongdae says. "He is pleased, and now he gives you the gift of rest. Your service is over." His hands slide up the being's arms. He grips the edges of the hood. "I take back your title of Watcher. That burden is no longer yours to bear." He pushes the hood down, revealing a face with skin as brown and dry as leather, and eyeless. There used to be clever eyes under thick, sharp brows. Jongdae remembers them, and remembers the perfectly proportioned forehead and the ideal nose. That mouth was clever, too, before the skin was dried. Clever in more ways than one.

"Junmyeon," he whispers, his fingers reverently tracing the scar on the husk's throat. He hasn't said that name in years. "Thank you." He places a kiss on Junmyeon's unmoving, bone-dry lips, but he's unbothered by the lack of response, and his smile never slips once. "Rest now, Junmyeon. It's time."

Junmyeon's mouth moves, and a clacking sigh escapes it. "Thank you," he rattles, the first words this husk has ever spoken. Jongdae watches as Junmyeon turns and walks off of the cliff's edge. Smiles as he hears the splash of the body hitting the water. A fitting retirement, and a well-deserved one.

He returns to oversee the rest of the pithing.

The outer integument is peeled away and the captain's bones, organs, muscles removed. This remnant will be given false life with the glyphs, so that it may wait with a bright sword in the chapel until one day, another sacrifice may come, as Junmyeon waited for his successor.

The captain's skin is filled with glory. The acolytes place it in the mold and pour the wax donated by lesser celebrants. The wick is slid down through the crown of the head to the hollow of the groin. They cut off the Weeping Scar and graft new skin onto the hole. The wounded flesh will be returned to the well. They move him back to the steps now that the blood has been cleared.

Jongdae places the seven candles around the body, one candle for each lesson. One by one, he lights them.

First he lights St Arthur's Candle, the faith candle. The propagation of eaten faith like seeds and leeches. Its greedy light blooms. Rituals unlocked with filthy, deadly secrets. The captain gazed at Jongdae during that first service with desire, even as his crew drew back in repulsion. He had always been destined for this.

The second candle to be lit is St Beau's Candle, the crossroads candle. The candle whose flame lights the feet of gallows-hung Hecate. The color of spring leaves in firelight. The captain coming back for seconds.

Next comes St Cerise's Candle. The sacrifice candle. Giving up to get something in return. The betrayal of friends for the Drowned Man, as he was betrayed. And the captain's betrayal was so delicious.

St. Destin's Candle is the fourth candle. The surrender candle. Jongdae does not light this candle.

The next candle he lights is St Erzulie's Candle, the remembrance candle. Remembering what was done to the Drowned Man, and in return, forgetting the self. Once, the captain had a name. But no more.

The sixth candle to be lit is St Forthigan's Candle. The candle innocent of treachery. It has been maligned. It has been offered. The captain offered himself, and in turn received an offering. It all comes around full circle. It always does.

Finally, the last in the line, St Gawain's Candle. It's Jongdae's favorite candle. Its wax was made from the fat of the man once called Junmyeon. Jongdae will let this candle burn until all of its wax melts, and then a new one will be made from the tallow of this new offering.

Once the candles have been lit, Jongdae replaces the captain's eyes in the divot of the sockets for the living wax to grasp them. He waits for the odor of searing to fade, waits for Jennie herself to sew the head back onto the neck, to coax the flesh with oils until it resembles life.

He places the glyphs, six of them, on the inside of the torso. The chest heaves with false breaths, and the vessel rises. The eyes that blink at him are still dark brown, under eyelids with no creases. The mouth that parts to smile back at him still has the captain's charmingly crooked teeth.

"Welcome, my glorious candle," Jongdae says. "Your vessel's name is Minseok."

It looks at Jongdae. "Yes," it says. "I'm Minseok." Its eyes blink rapidly as the glyphs fill it with the memories of its predecessor. There are twin flashes of light in the circles of its pupils before they go dark, as dark as the bottom of the well.

"You have acquired a hat," Jongdae teases, tapping two of his fingers on the side of the creature's neck. "Make sure not to take it off."

The glyph-being takes Minseok's memories, his shape, and his name. It leaves the chapel and takes his ship and his crew, who are none the wiser to the imposter captain. They'll lose their nervousness around this new Minseok again soon enough; people are all too eager to forget. It will help that the vessel doesn't have the same desperate red urges that the sacrifice did in his last weeks. Besides the renewed capacity for abstinence, and the silvery scar across its throat, the differences are invisible.

No one will ever know.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **+1 Your Own Severed Head**   



	9. EPILOGUE

Years later, Minseok lies in a bed in London with the man he's been courting in between expeditions. In the afterglow of their lovemaking, Baekhyun slides his indecently nubile body over Minseok's stolen one. Minseok is glad he doesn't have impulses to consume his bedmates anymore, especially with this one: Baekhyun has long, clever fingers, and a pink mouth meant for ruining. He runs those fingers over the scar on Minseok's neck, laughing quietly. The skin around the scarred flesh is still sensitive even now, and he shudders. "This is quite the scar," Baekhyun purrs, teases. "Were you beheaded or something, Captain?"

Minseok's lips quirk. He rolls Baekhyun over, traces his nose against the line of his throat and feeling it vibrate as Baekhyun laughs.

"Only once."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank you so much for reading until the end! i've had about 3k words of wmglt sitting in evernote since last october, but it wasn't until this month that i actually wrote the other 15k. thank you to everyone who helped me out along the way, and everyone who commented. i've never actually looked forward to comments before. thank you for making me feel special, like my work is worth reading.
> 
> after the events of this fic, sehun leaves with some of the other crew members and gets his own ship, a small but respectable corvette, and becomes a very angry, very fearsome pirate. luhan never really recovers, and eventually seeks out his end in the corridors of frostfound. "minseok" and baekhyun live happily(?) ever after. baekhyun never finds out what minseok really is.
> 
> a few people have asked me what kept minseok coming back, and the only real answer i have for you is another question: why does anyone who plays echo bazaar games do any quest line that gives you the cannibal taint when nothing good comes of it?
> 
> also, to clarify: in the previous chapter, minseok's skin was taken off, filled with wax, and animated to pretend to be minseok. the rest of the body was mummified, also animated, and made to be the next "watcher." it would have been fun to have an ending where jongdae eats minseok himself or something, but i wanted to stay true to the questline!
> 
> speaking of echo bazaar, for anyone who hasn't played sunless sea but might be interested in it, i'd like to suggest playing the (free!) core game first, [fallen london](https://www.fallenlondon.com), to give you a little...taste :) it's all text-based so it's like an interactive choose your own adventure story.
> 
> once again, thanks for reading!


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